Should Nintendo go 3rd party?!

[dazzybee]

I actually really like QTE's

[ReZourceman]

The Last Of Us is a masterpiece, and it's presentation is one of the last things I would list as to why. @Serebii, you may think the gameplay is woefully mediocre but you're in the minority, and that's fine,....but to say that all western games are going for presentation as giving one of the greatest games ever made as an item to support your criticism is...well it's a woefully mediocre example! :p

 

And @Agent Gibbs, I don't see how the gameplay is recycled from Uncharted. Apart from the fact that they are both 3rd person view and made by Naughty Dog, there isn't a big connection. One is an ammo crazy climbing setup, and the other a scavenge/stealth/survival setup. Tomb Raider and Uncharted are almost identical I'd say, but The Last Of Us and Unch....absolutely not.

 

Off the top of my head from last year.

 

The Last of Us.

 

Stunning game. Decent graphics & presentation, with a story that hooks you. However, the gameplay...at least to me...was woefully mediocre. It would have made a brilliant movie, but for a game? No.

 

Grand Theft Auto V

 

Decent story, and it definitely held the game together and the presentation was strong. However, so many missions in it were just drive from A to B while the characters discussed the story, then much of the actual narrative occurred in cutscenes. The actual missions it had were great, but there were far too few.

 

Hell, even Assassin's Creed 4 was somewhat like this in a lot of places. Just sit and follow people while they discuss the story, and then stab them.

 

I actually really like QTE's

Yeah I don't see the problem with QTEs. They're in everything in some form (Nintendo game, well received with QTEs off the top of my head, Mario & Luigi)

Edited January 22, 2014 by ReZourceman
Automerged Doublepost

[Serebii]

The Last Of Us is a masterpiece, and it's presentation is one of the last things I would list as to why. @Serebii, you may think the gameplay is woefully mediocre but you're in the minority, and that's fine,....but to say that all western games are going for presentation as giving one of the greatest games ever made as an item to support your criticism is...well it's a woefully mediocre example! :p

 

And @Agent Gibbs, I don't see how the gameplay is recycled from Uncharted. Apart from the fact that they are both 3rd person view and made by Naughty Dog, there isn't a big connection. One is an ammo crazy climbing setup, and the other a scavenge/stealth/survival setup. Tomb Raider and Uncharted are almost identical I'd say, but The Last Of Us and Unch....absolutely not.

 

 

 

Yeah I don't see the problem with QTEs. They're in everything in some form (Nintendo game, well received with QTEs off the top of my head, Mario & Luigi)

I'm saying that presentation isn't why I buy a game. I buy it to be something to played, not to look at and think "Oh, this is rather good". If I wanted that, I'd go to an art gallery, or for it with story, I'd watch a movie.

 

The Last of Us, in my eyes, is not a good game. As I said, great graphics, story and presentation, but the gameplay is mediocre at best. It is nowhere near being one of the best games ever, not even one of the best games last year, at least to me.

 

I may be in the minority since I dislike it, but as I said, check GotY posts around the net. Few people praise the actual gameplay of the game.

[Agent Gibbs]

 

And @Agent Gibbs, I don't see how the gameplay is recycled from Uncharted. Apart from the fact that they are both 3rd person view and made by Naughty Dog, there isn't a big connection. One is an ammo crazy climbing setup, and the other a scavenge/stealth/survival setup. Tomb Raider and Uncharted are almost identical I'd say, but The Last Of Us and Unch....absolutely not.

 

 

Again, i'm not saying the gameplay in either is bad, i love the last of us, i used uncharted as a same developer example, but i suppose what i meant was the gameplay was standard third person fair, the similarity with uncharted are the shooting mechanics.....

The last of us was a poor example of substance over gameplay because Naughty Dog got it so very very right with that game

 

I mean i'm going out on a limb here but i think Serebii's fear of westernising is a situation like Resident Evil 6 where jap devs have tried to emulate a western style and completely bastardised gameplay to do it

 

or as i said Final Fantasy 13...

[Cube]

Also, I play games to play games. If I have to sit watching a cutscene for more than 120 seconds in one sitting, I'm not a happy chap.

 

I take it you're not a fan of the 3D Zelda games?

 

Also, QTEs can be done well. The new Tomb Raider, for example, has a very good balance with them.

[Serebii]

I take it you're not a fan of the 3D Zelda games?

 

Also, QTEs can be done well. The new Tomb Raider, for example, has a very good balance with them.

It annoys me when they have long cutscenes, but they aren't exactly common. Thankfully, it's done with text and I read very quickly, so I can get through them very quickly.

 

I do vastly prefer 2D ones though, yes.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Serebii

[Goron_3]

Okay, hold up. I haven't actually played The Last of Us but I thought it was a 3rd person shooter? I don't want to spoil it for myself but watching videos but is it a 3rd people shooter or an interactive movie type game (such as Heavy Rain). These comments are confusing me.

 

Either way, I have nothing against games that are experimenting with the term 'what is a game' and are trying to push the boundaries forward. I would rather have that than another NSMB game, or even Mario Kart/Donkey Kong.

[Cube]

Okay, hold up. I haven't actually played The Last of Us but I thought it was a 3rd person shooter?

 

In basic terms, it's a stealth 3rd person shooter (but there's quite a bit of depth to the gameplay, and sections are quite varied).

[ReZourceman]

I mean i'm going out on a limb here but i think Serebii's fear of westernising is a situation like Resident Evil 6 where jap devs have tried to emulate a western style and completely bastardised gameplay to do it

 

Then Serebii is looking in all the wrong places

[Hero-of-Time]

 

Then Serebii is looking in all the wrong places

 

You included Tearaway. This pleases me.

[Agent Gibbs]

Well thats why i said in one of my other posts that personally i think if anyone can do it Nintendo can, especially with their strive for perfection,i just personally can't see them (or anyone) releasing anything like resident evil 6

 

 

but i disagree on tearaway...i hated the demo it was boring, looked awesome but i put it down after 10 min bored shitless.....

 

I'll run and hide

[ReZourceman]

I can't imagine Capcom releasing anything like Resident Evil Shitx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Has never played it*

[Serebii]

 

Then Serebii is looking in all the wrong places

Many of those games don't fit the point you're trying to make...

[RedShell]

Okay, hold up. I haven't actually played The Last of Us but I thought it was a 3rd person shooter? I don't want to spoil it for myself but watching videos but is it a 3rd people shooter or an interactive movie type game (such as Heavy Rain). These comments are confusing me.

Gameplay wise it's basically Resident Evil + Metal Gear Solid. It is a good game, but I still think it's been pretty overrated to be honest.

The presentation is definitely the best thing about it.

 

In basic terms, it's a stealth 3rd person shooter (but there's quite a bit of depth to the gameplay, and sections are quite varied).

Yeah, like "get on the fucking pallet" over and over again.

[Jonnas]

Yeah I don't see the problem with QTEs. They're in everything in some form (Nintendo game, well received with QTEs off the top of my head, Mario & Luigi)

 

I tend to never think of the Mario RPG battle system as QTEs because A. They're constant and predictable (as in, they don't interrupt anything, they don't come out of nowhere, their use is the same every time) and B. They aren't part of entire segments that are basically cutscenes with "Press X" at random intervals.

[Ganepark32]

Yeah, like "get on the fucking pallet" over and over again.

 

See, I've seen a lot of comments about Ellie's AI in TLoU being poor at times, like in the instance you've alluded to, but in all honesty, I never once encountered a problem with it at any point during my play through. Perhaps I was just lucky.

 

I think the thing that The Last of Us has done more than anything, along with many 3rd party titles over the last few years, is show how far behind Nintendo have fallen with regards to providing an engaging narrative in their games. Yes, gameplay should always come first. A game could have the most original/amazing story in the world but if it's unplayable then what's the point.

 

But the reality is, and this is a point I've labored before so I'm not going to go to deep into it again, yes there is a need for more gameplay driven titles, like the Marios and what not, in today's games industry but over the last couple of year gaming landscape, whether it's the developers or the players, has changed and the desire for strong narrative driven games which appeal to a wider Western audience (that last part is the key here because it is within the Western gaming markets where growth is happening and moving things forward more so than in Japan) has become more apparent and so developers and publishers do need to provide examples of both.

 

Nintendo are not left out of this and while they may still hit the nail on the head with their stalwart IPs, due to the massive changes in the gaming landscape they've fallen behind due to their adherence to traditions and their hesitation in picking up new ideas from a generation which has provided some truly striking games, be this your strong narratives in Mass Effect or The Last of Us or through more simplistic yet still emotionally evocative titles like Journey.

 

Yes, Nintendo has severe problems on their home console hardware front but they also have significant problems in terms of their own software and for every time they step outside the Mario/Zelda/whatever bubble, there is still an overwhelming adherence to those franchises which, while still selling, have become stale due to not moving them on with the times. They seriously need to be looking at what Western devs are doing and add some of that to their library. Hell, when THQ went under they should have been there looking at the likes of Vigil Games to gain more Western development studios.

 

Anyway, this doesn't really add anything to the debate of whether Nintendo should go 3rd party or not but given some of what I've talked about, I think they'd need to have a long, hard look at their IPs and bring some of them into the modern age if they ever went down that route.

[liger05]

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2014/01/nintendo-mobile/

 

The entire internet has weighed in with what it believes is the answer to Nintendo’s financial woes: Go mobile, immediately. But the entire internet is wrong.

 

Nintendo’s announcement that it’s facing a third straight year of losses prompted pundits to say the company must swallow its pride and put Super Mario on smartphones. I’ve argued against this in the past, to little avail. The opinion that Nintendo should “go mobile” has become such conventional wisdom that it has moved beyond gaming columns and investor reports to the straightest of straight news stories.

 

“Resisting Mobile Hurts Nintendo’s Bottom Line,” read a New York Times headline over the weekend. “Nintendo Refuses To Make The Radical Change That Could Boost Sales,” Reuters declared. This is begging the question, beginning from the presumption that obviously Nintendo should put its games on iOS and going from there.

 

The conventional wisdom is wrong. It is not an inevitability that Nintendo must put its games on rival hardware or die. It may even be a bad move.

 

Having been at least convinced that it would be too risky for Nintendo to jettison its hardware business entirely, many analysts and commentators are now staking out what they imagine to be a more moderate and sensible position: Nintendo should put some of its games on others’ platforms. This, too, is a logical fallacy, namely argumentum ad temperantiam: the idea if one is faced with two opposing arguments, the correct position must be somewhere in the middle. But suggesting that Nintendo “dip its toe” into mobile app stores is like suggesting that a couple pondering parenthood consider getting just a little bit pregnant.

 

Before Nintendo would ever put any content onto the App Store, it would first have to be ready to compete in that environment and sell its games on a platform where race-to-the-bottom pricing and aggressive freemium money-making mechanics are the norm. It must be willing to learn how to design its products in a way that would make them competitive on that platform. This is not so easily done. And that’s a fundamental problem with the conventional wisdom: It is based on the premise that a strong enough brand can make the App Store a glorified ATM: Old games go in, piles of money come out.

 

If I was working my ass off making mobile games, I’d take the “Nintendo should put Mario on iOS and make tons of money” idea as an insult. Not only does it slight the hard work being put into great mobile games, it’s an outdated strategy. Clunky ports of old games might have had early success, but you have to scroll deeply into the Top Grossing Apps list these days to find an old game. The only ones I saw were various versions of Grand Theft Auto, but they aren’t quick and cheap ports — they have high-definition graphic updates and customized touch controls.

 

The idea that Nintendo should just dump its old games on iOS for free money is Underpants Gnomes logic.

Speaking of which, that’s an issue, too: Super Mario Bros. 3 is an amazing game, but would it be as much fun on a touch screen with virtual buttons? No, it would not. And before you argue, but you can hook up a Bluetooth gamepad to your phone, think about how that changes the situation. If Nintendo is designing mobile games for the tiny number of people who go to the trouble of using an external controller with their mobile device, it’s no longer going after the millions upon millions of casual consumers that presumably are the entire reason it would go mobile in the first place.

 

The idea that Nintendo should “just dump its old games on iOS for free money” is Underpants Gnomes logic. It takes time, effort, talent and care to create successful mobile games. It’s not free money, it’s a significant diversion of resources from Nintendo’s platforms.

 

Moreover, while “mobile” may be an effective shorthand for describing Nintendo’s current problems, the company’s hardware is not the fundamental problem. It’s not as if the tablet is an incredibly attractive gaming form factor that is manifestly superior to 3DS or Wii U. “Nintendo should go mobile” is a profoundly unimaginative statement. Videogames, man-machine interfaces, are evolving rapidly in countless ways. With all of the many, varied things Nintendo could attempt in order to change how we play games, why would we want to railroad it into slavishly following the current trend?

 

Nintendo doesn’t need to go where its customers went; it needs to get them back or find new ones. Not having games on iPhone is not Nintendo’s problem. This is Nintendo’s problem: For the last few years, it has been attempting to use ~$250 game platforms on which you must pay $40-60 to play a game to compete with ~$250 game platforms that give you infinite games for free. Nintendo cannot win this fight. When consumers look at a 3DS and a Kindle and decide they want to play games on the Kindle, it’s not because of the hardware, but because that hardware is a magic portal to a world full of free entertainment. For Nintendo to stay relevant, it must develop a strategy that can legitimately compete with that reality.

 

I don’t know what such a strategy might be. The possibilities are endless. But if Nintendo were to decide that everything it has resisted so far — cheap game prices, an open platform one which everyone can create games, swimming in the same pool as “garage developers,” free-to-play mechanics — are in fact desirable, the most likely outcome would not be Nintendo entering a competitor’s app store, but Nintendo creating its own app store.

 

Although software sales have been sluggish, there are 40 million Nintendo 3DS units out there. Why not change the eShop already on these units from a walled garden where only Nintendo and a few selected partners can play and open it up to everyone? Instead of dripping one or two games per week onto its classic game download service Virtual Console, why not launch a full-on push to get as many games from its catalog and the catalogs of every other classic console onto the service — and use variable pricing to sell premium games (think Super Mario World) for $8 and more obscure ones for a buck?

 

You should want Nintendo to run its own platform.

Heck, why not make the thousands of games for the original Nintendo DS available on the eShop? Licenses would have to be re-negotiated for many third-party titles, sure, but that would be as close to free money as you can get because 3DS already runs DS software natively. Nintendo itself has a huge back catalog of DS games that it owns the rights to, free and clear. It should begin selling these games to its own customers before it starts selling anything to Apple’s and Google’s customers.

 

Moreover, if you like Nintendo’s games as they are, you should want Nintendo to run its own platform. I wonder if any of the Underpants Gnomes understand why, exactly, Nintendo’s games are so unique. Nintendo has the freedom to create games unlike anything else in the world precisely because it has always controlled the entire gameplay experience from hardware to software. It doesn’t have to rely on the success or failure of another company to continue to deliver its products, which is not the case with other software makers. The idea that Nintendo could simply shift its games to another platform and we would continue enjoying the same content is magical thinking.

 

But if Nintendo wants to keep its own platform, it does need to tackle the cost problem. Its first plan was to attempt to shame game publishers into backing its vision of the future by suggesting that Apple’s business structure represented a dire threat to the long-term health of the videogame industry. Once that didn’t work, Nintendo made some long overdue but still conservative tweaks to its own digital games store while doubling down on the content and appeal of its own software. No one would suggest that 2013 was anything less than a slam dunk for the Nintendo 3DS in terms of the sheer quality of games; Nintendo was able to push its teams to churn out hits like Animal Crossing, Pokemon and Legend of Zelda. If customers were resistant to the idea of paying $40 for a new game, Nintendo would make games that were so damn good they’d have no choice but to pay up.

 

Nintendo is excellent at staving off the forces of gravity, which can have the result of delaying the inevitable. The kicker quote of that New York Times piece is from Greg Richardson, former head of EA Partners, who opines that before Nintendo can “disrupt itself,” it needs to “fail against [its] own playbook fundamentally.” Buzzword-heavy but correct: If the old ways still deliver some results, it’s harder to throw them out. Nintendo is Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, but in this case it is exceptionally good at pushing the rock. It can push the rock like nobody’s business, really, really far up the hill. Almost to the top.

 

Nintendo has a reputation of being “too conservative,” which is true in some ways but not others. The Nintendo 64 machine is the archetypal example. While the entire rest of the industry moved to cheaper, safer CD-ROM technology, Nintendo stuck with the expensive ROM cartridges that it knew and loved. This was a huge mistake, causing practically every game publisher to shift its business to Sony’s PlayStation — and yet Nintendo, through producing its own best-in-class software, actually turned a profit every single year of the N64′s life. The same thing is currently happening with 3DS (not even the game franchises have changed) minus the profit.

 

But on the other hand, Nintendo 64 revolutionized 3-D videogames by introducing the analog stick, force feedback and other innovations, not to mention the way Super Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time practically wrote the book on how to make 3-D videogames. Nintendo can be a phenomenally deep stick in the mud about some things, but also willing to go all in on crazy new ideas. Sony and Microsoft, in their entire histories in the game hardware business, have never done anything half as crazy as Wii.

 

Just as eventually Nintendo was forced to put its games on discs, so too will it eventually come around to the reality that it is possible to run a more open and agile digital games store without ruining the entire videogame industry in the process. If that doesn’t work to fix Wii U and 3DS, then Nintendo will likely at least release another generation of hardware and see if that can do it.

 

And if that doesn’t work, well, then maybe Nintendo will get out of hardware. Nothing lasts forever. But it’s likely that there will be many, many steps between now and then. Nintendo will have to give up something that it holds dear, if it wants to go on. But it doesn’t have to give up entirely.

 

Some very interesting points. I agree with the race to the bottom pricing on smartphones would be an issue for Nintendo and this guy is right when its just assumed dump games on ios/android and the money rolls in?

 

An interesting point about the eshop. I do wonder why DS games are not up on there?

Edited January 22, 2014 by liger05

[ReZourceman]

Many of those games don't fit the point you're trying to make...

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry - which ones?

[dazzybee]

To be fair I thought the point was about Japanese developers making western gamers, not about western developers making great games.

 

But I may be wrong, I lost this a long time ago!!

[Ike]

Anyway, that article has some flaws. For example, with their EA source

 

Something seems off about that statement to me. The fallout seemed to happen before launch. The Wii U had plenty of "adult" games (Mass Effect, Batman, Darksiders), in fact Zombie U was one of the first games they showed off. Also, it's Nintendo - what type of games did they expect?

[Grazza]

A lot of people are thinking that this means that Nintendo have to go all grey and blood N guts but this isn't the case.

 

Quite. To me it means things like Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime and F-Zero GX. In my opinion there's really been a certain "feel" missing in recent years. I remember the days when many of us used to read IGN, with Matt Casamassina talking a lot about the Metroid games etc. Nintendo of America seemed much more important in those days (at least that's my perception).

 

Times change, of course, but it's just so different now. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that all Nintendo's big games have an obvious mascot in, like how Retro's game is Donkey Kong (as you say), rather than anything that'd show us what sort of 3D worlds the Wii U can create. I hope things change for the better because I want that "GameCube" feeling again, where I'm looking forward to something like Twilight Princess.

 

what are everyone's thoughts on new Hardware, it keeps getting mentioned that they should release something now, but thats just impractical surely.....but then reducing the WiiU lifecycle and replacing it sooner is surely something they are going to do, and in the interim give it a crutch to limp on

 

Personally, I'm greatly anticipating their next handheld and think that'll be their next priority (and probably in 2016). Even if Wii U completely flops (like not being sold in shops at all), I think Nintendo would release their next handheld first. That said, do you remember those reports about the next console and handheld being very closely linked and sharing the same architecture? There's always the possibility that they'll be launched at exactly the same time.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Grazza

[Josh64]

I'm honestly curious as to if anything will happen at all. I know stuff needs to happen but knowing Nintendo I can't help but think they'll just keep plodding on as they are and claim that "one game can change everything" until Mario Kart and Smash are out, at which point they'll find themselves in the same position this time next year and probably spout the same old "we're learinng, lol" shit that they usually do. It will be an endless cycle until they stumble upon another success, like the original Wii, or they just completely fade into obscurity and get blasted off to the Forest of Hope in their onions.

[liger05]

Quite. To me it means things like Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime and F-Zero GX. In my opinion there's really been a certain "feel" missing in recent years. I remember the days when many of us used to read IGN, with Matt Casamassina talking a lot about the Metroid games etc. Nintendo of America seemed much more important in those days (at least that's my perception).

 

Times change, of course, but it's just so different now. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that all Nintendo's big games have an obvious mascot in, like how Retro's game is Donkey Kong (as you say), rather than anything that'd show us what sort of 3D worlds the Wii U can create. I hope things change for the better because I want that "GameCube" feeling again, where I'm looking forward to something like Twilight Princess.

 

 

 

Personally, I'm greatly anticipating their next handheld and think that'll be their next priority (and probably in 2016). Even if Wii U completely flops (like not being sold in shops at all), I think Nintendo would release their next handheld first. That said, do you remember those reports about the next console and handheld being very closely linked and sharing the same architecture? There's always the possibility that they'll be launched at exactly the same time.

 

I agree. E3 2015 they will show the next handheld. No way the 3DS goes on for more than 5 years.

[Hero-of-Time]

Quite. To me it means things like Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime and F-Zero GX. In my opinion there's really been a certain "feel" missing in recent years. I remember the days when many of us used to read IGN, with Matt Casamassina talking a lot about the Metroid games etc. Nintendo of America seemed much more important in those days (at least that's my perception).

 

Times change, of course, but it's just so different now. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that all Nintendo's big games have an obvious mascot in, like how Retro's game is Donkey Kong (as you say), rather than anything that'd show us what sort of 3D worlds the Wii U can create. I hope things change for the better because I want that "GameCube" feeling again, where I'm looking forward to something like Twilight Princess.

 

There is a thread over on Gaf about the Twilight Princess reveal. The thread was essentially set up to remember that hype inducing moment but it's trailed off a little to a discussion about Nintendo delivering great presentations.

 

Someone posted the E3 2004 presentation and I sat and watched it all last night. It's crazy how different the messaging is between then and now. Just watch the first 10 mins or so.

 

 

If you watch further into the show Reggie says that they aren't about to forget about casual players, which is fine, but they started off strong with a bunch of games that appeal to the western audience and then continued to show more and more titles with a lot of diversity.

[Ike]

Someone posted the E3 2004 presentation and I sat and watched it all last night. It's crazy how different the messaging is between then and now. Just watch the first 10 mins or so.

 

Haha, those digs at Sony/Microsoft at the start.

 

I think that's the first time I've seen the whole of that E3 presentation, you can tell the difference between 2004 and 2006, never mind between 2004 and now.

 

I forgot about the original DS design. Terrible! Interesting that Reggie talked about voice control and they never really did anything with it.

 

That reaction to "Metroid DS". If only they knew.

 

Interestingly, I noticed they had 5 Mario titles lined up. Paper Mario 2, Mario Golf, Mario Pinball, Mario Party and Mario 64 DS. People are complaining Nintendo are milking Mario today?

 

The Zelda reveal still gives me goosebumps even today!

 

Don't miss that sales talk though.